Stanley Morison's Aldine Hypothesis Revisited

Abstract

Admiration for the graphic vigor of the past brought historic fonts back into use in the modern period and renewed scholars' discus sions of stylistic influence in type design. In this context, the British type historian, Stanley Morison, proposed in the 1920s a hypothesis that was to alter the writing of typographic history in the twentieth century. Then at the beginning of his career, and busy scouring ar chives for examples of fine printing, Morison observed that, at origin, the French roman types of the early sixteenth century shared traits with the romans used by the Italian Renaissance publisher, Aldus Manutius. The observation was at variance with the scholarly opin ion of the period. Aldus was known for his Greek type, and for hav ing had Francesco Griff o cut the first italic in 1501. Aldus's roman, by contrast, was overlooked by historians as they assessed the influ ence of Italian fonts on later French ones. Nicolaus Jenson's 1470 ro man was heralded instead as the most likely model for the designs. Praise for Jenson's roman was rampant in the literature. The most recent volley had come in 1922 with the publication of Daniel Berkeley Updike's landmark study, Printing Types, Their History, Forms, and Use.1 Updike identified the strengths of Jenson's font as readability, its mellowness of form, and the evenness of colour in mass, and continued: Jenson's roman types have been the accepted models for roman letters ever since he made them, and, repeatedly copied in our own day, have never been equalled.... No other man produced quite so fine a font, or had better taste in the composition of a page and its imposition upon paper.2 Updike went on to characterize the Aldine roman as distinctly inferior to Jenson's.3 Even so, with little debate, Morison's Aldine hypothesis was quickly considered proven. It was supplemented by others, and is incorporated as fact in the modern literature on the history of typography. Scholars who work in the area, however, constantly encounter both the value of Morison's insight and the limitations of his construct. My work on some of the principal theorists and prac titioners of French Renaissance typography,4 for instance, has raised many questions about the utility of the hypothesis, suggesting that it needs to be rethought and, if necessary, revised. 1 Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types, Their History, Forms, and Use, A Study